China finds itself dragged to the International Criminal Court (ICC) over increasing atrocities toward Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim populations in the Xinjiang region of the country.

A group of lawyers have submitted to ICC a dossier of evidence of mass arbitrary detention, forced labour, torture, forced sterilization, separation of children from parents and destruction of minority culture, says a report.

This is the third dossier of evidence submitted by the lawyers, who represent Uyghurs in exile, since an initial complaint was filed two years ago, on June 6, 2020; Additional evidence was presented on July 10, 2021, November 2021, and this past Monday, according to the report in Beijing News Net.

The lawyers said they presented the ICC with new evidence of Beijing’s efforts “to round up Uyghurs in neighbouring countries, including an ICC member state, and elsewhere, to force them back” to China.

Also submitted was “first-hand evidence from a witness” who was deported to China, detained in internment camps and subjected to “interrogation and torture” before escaping from China in 2018, the report said quoting globalsecurity.org said

It shows that the Chinese government is implementing a policy of rounding up Uyghurs and other ethnically Turkic people from outside China, including ICC member states such as neighbouring Tajikistan, and forcefully deporting them back to China,” the legal team said in a statement provided to VOA.  The policy of repression has been intensified since 2016.

Other Uyghur witnesses who fled from Tajikistan to Turkey in 2018 described how China pressured police and immigration officials in Tajikistan to deport Uyghurs back to China.

Research shows that more than 1,500 Uyghurs, including many who are human rights defenders, have been detained or forcibly returned to China where many have faced imprisonment and torture in custody.